by C. J. Felver
I nod, but Lyza speaks up, giving him an incredulous look. “How do we know you’ll make it back in time?”
Always the skeptic.
He meets her gaze as he answers her, mischief in his eyes and a wicked smile playing across his lips. “You don’t.”
Well, that’s comforting. I’m just going to hope he has a ridiculous sense of humor and this isn’t how he really feels. It would really suck if he doesn’t show up. We would have no one to help us figure out my dad’s tracker, and then AGAS would capture all three of us.
Yeah, let’s not go there.
“So, you have a few more cars than one person needs,” I say, trying to fix my train of thought. “Are cars a hobby of yours?” He must have collected them all in the five years since graduation, because I don’t remember these from high school. They definitely would’ve been a bragging point back then.
“I wouldn’t really call it a hobby,” Zander says, shrugging one shoulder. “It’s more of an obsession. I enjoy driving. It’s how I get away from everything once in a while.”
“I get that. Somehow I doubt you’ll get that kind of reprieve with a utility van though.” Crap. I can’t believe I just said that. It basically bypassed my mental filter. Zander’s chuckle reassures me that my nosey question didn’t bother him.
“Yeah, not so much with that thing. It’s more for my work.”
Which makes total sense. I should’ve known that. How embarrassing.
“What kind of car is this?” I ask to stifle my humiliation.
“This,” Zander says as he runs his hand across the dashboard, “is my Lotus Elise. I wanted this car for as long as I could remember. So when I finally found my way in life and started making money, I saved up enough to buy this baby first.”
Silence fills the car again, and it’s a bit awkward, but now I need to focus on getting my dad back, so I just sit there watching through the windshield.
It doesn’t take us long to get where we’re going. Zander drives like an absolute madman, cutting our fifteen-minute drive in half. I have no idea how he managed to get by without passing any cops.
“Platt and Third,” he reminds us, pulling the car up to the curb. “Your dad is in that direction.” Zander points toward an old warehouse. Luckily, there’s only one building, so we don’t have to waste time looking around. I nod and Lyza opens her door, letting us both out. My pride takes a hit as my toe catches the seatbelt and I almost land face first on the sidewalk. As soon as I right myself, we take off running in the direction Zander gave us.
Close to the building, we stop. “Let’s come up with a plan real quick,” Lyza whispers.
“I’m not wasting any time with these clowns. Use your electricity to take out their comms. I’ll distract them, we grab my dad, then we get the hell outta there.”
“Solid plan. I like it. One question, though: how are you distracting them?”
“Uh, with my water. Obviously,” I reply with an eye roll.
“You’re not wearing your modified hoodie.”
Crap. Normally, this wouldn’t be a problem, but this area seems especially dry. I close my eyes for a moment, trying to feel for water nearby. I sense a miniscule amount, but there’s no way it’ll be enough for what I have in mind.
Opening my eyes, I stumble backward, startled by a water bottle being held less than an inch away from my face.
Lyza giggles, handing me the water bottle. I fix her with a glare. “Sorry, girl. I couldn’t help myself,” she whispers, not looking sorry at all.
“Where did you get that?” I ask, pointing at the water bottle.
She shrugs. “It was in Zander’s car. Didn’t think he’d mind.”
I nod, pulling the water from the bottle and holding it aloft in front of me.
She walks ahead of me toward the building’s side entrance, where a door is propped open. Peering through, Lyza signals to me that she sees three guards. She pauses before going through the door and whispers, “I think we should switch. I don’t think you have enough water.” She looks pointedly at my softball size sphere. “You take out the comms and I’ll distract them.”
“Yeah, you’re right.”
“Aren’t I always?”
I just shake my head and roll my eyes. This girl. Even though she can be a pain, I’m glad she’s here with me.
Distractions
Luckily for us, the room we enter is pretty dark. Brick walls. The drop tile ceiling is missing half of the tiles, and the ones still there are hanging out or sagging. None of the lights are on; most of them appear to have burst at some point, and the windows are boarded up.
The only furniture in the room are two old-school, heavy metal desks—the kind you’d see in an office complex. One is situated in the middle of the wide space, where three guards are sitting playing cards by the light of some sort of lantern. The other is pushed closer to the far wall. But … where’s my dad?
Slipping in quietly, I hug the wall until I am close enough to see the radios on the guards’ shoulders. Holding the sphere of water in front of me, I divide it into three spheres, trickling each one toward the radios. Hopefully it’s enough to do the job. We don’t want them to be able to communicate with anyone or call in reinforcements. By the time I’m done, the water is completely gone. There’s no way I’m pulling any of it back out of them, either. I’ve managed not to draw any attention to myself yet, and I’d like to keep it that way.
I shift into a deeper squat, silently assessing the room, trying to spot my dad. The low light of the lantern only casts about a six-foot circle, and everything outside that circle is pretty much pitch black.
Sparks fly in the back of the room. A perfect distraction. Wherever Lyza is hiding, I can’t see her, even with her light show illuminating the entire place.
The guards get up to investigate the sparks. One guy hovers his hand over the gun at his hip. They move slowly, still unaware of my presence. Each one of them has their backs completely to me.
There!
I finally spot my dad, thanks to Lyza. He’s sitting on the floor, propped up against the wall with a blindfold over his eyes. They have him positioned almost straight across from the doorway we entered through. It looks like his hands are bound in front of him. Wow … AGAS is slacking on their capture-and-detain training if these guys don’t even know how to properly secure someone. They used zip ties too. It wouldn’t have taken much for him to just get up and run out the door, especially with as little attention as they were paying him.
The sparks on the back wall grow larger. That’s a signal from Lyza without a doubt. Our time is limited, so we need to move fast.
As I begin to creep toward my dad—doing my best not to make a sound—electricity spreads across the floor in a long, flowing arc. I scrunch back against the wall, trying to avoid the current. The arc splits into three currents, each one landing on one of the AGAS guards. They writhe for a moment, then collapse to the floor, unconscious.
Pushing off against the wall, I run across the room, then drop to my knees and skid to a stop in front of my dad. I haul my dad up from the floor and rip off his blindfold.
“Don’t worry. I didn’t use enough to kill them, just knocked ’em out,” Lyza says, coming into the room, handing me the knife from her boot. It cuts through the zip ties on my dad’s wrists like butter. “Let’s go before they come to. It won’t be long.”
Wasting no time, I tow my dad across to the door, throwing a look over my shoulder to double check that the AGAS douchebags are still lying unconscious. The three of us leave the building and book it toward the corner of Platt and Third, which is about a six-block run from the warehouse.
I hope like hell that Zander didn’t decide to ditch us.
Not long into our journey away from the warehouse, my dad starts slowing down, intentionally lagging behind. “I can’t go with you. They’ll find me again!” He shakes his head frantically, coming to a dead stop on the sidewalk.
“Oh no, nuh-uh,” L
yza tells him, hands planted on her hips. “We did not just get you out of AGAS’s hands again, to have you chicken out and run straight back to them. You’re coming with us.”
“I can’t!” he shouts. His voice shakes with panic, his eyes wide. “They’re tracking me somehow. It doesn’t matter where you take me, they’ll be able to find me again! You’re not safe!”
“Dad, listen …” I grab both of his shoulders and force him to look into my eyes. “We found someone able to help with the tracker. He’s the one who helped us find you. The plan is to meet him a few blocks away. He’s going to remove your tracker. They won’t be able to find you again.”
Looking past my dad, I can see that the AGAS members we dropped are no longer down, but are charging through the doorway. A curse escapes my lips.
“Time to go,” Lyza says, grabbing Frank by the arm, not giving him a choice anymore. Despite the agony on his face, he doesn’t hesitate following beside her as she runs.
We don’t have much ground ahead of the guards following us. While they seem to be moving slowly, they’re somehow gaining on us.
“Keep moving,” I say, pushing myself harder. Reaching toward my dad, I help Lyza push him along, hoping he doesn’t try to get himself caught as an attempt to save us somehow. There’s no doubt in my mind that he would try to do something like that.
The sound of boots pounding the pavement echoes in my ears. My heart is hammering inside my chest.
Three more blocks. We’re so close now. Zander’s car isn’t anywhere in sight, but I try to keep the worry from settling in. I refuse to think about what could happen to us if he isn’t there.
Why didn’t I think to grab my hoodie before we left? I could really slow them down if I had access to water, but this area of town is so barren.
Chancing another backward glance, our pursuers are … nowhere. They’ve disappeared.
What the fuck?
They were right there. I could hear their footfalls.
There’s less than a block to go, but still no Zander in sight.
We stop at the corner of Platt and Third. Glancing around, there’s no sign of Zander’s car. Panic floods through me, like ice water flowing through my veins. Without Zander, I have no idea what to do about my dad’s tracking device.
The screeching of tires has me whipping my head to the left. I let out a sigh of relief, my limbs relaxing as Zander’s silver Lotus speeds into view. He practically mounts the curb as he stops right in front of us. Lyza wrenches the door open and slides into the back seat. I shove my dad in with her and throw the passenger seat back so I can crawl in myself.
With one leg in the car, an arm wraps around my waist, yanking me backward. My body slams into a hard muscular chest.
Shouts ring out from inside the car, but I can’t decipher anything. A haze takes over my mind as I realize what’s happening.
“Cleo!” my dad screams, but Lyza begins shouting over him. I can’t make out what she’s saying. My focus is on getting free.
I struggle against the arm holding me firmly in place, kicking out and throwing elbows, trying my best to land a good jab. My attacker’s grip never falters, holding me like a vise.
Steel presses to my temple, biting against my skin. All fight leaves me.
I have no defenses against a gun being held to my head.
Time slows down. My chest is tight and constricted, like a thousand-pound weight is sitting there. Ragged huffs of air escape me, but I fight hard to control it, forcing myself to breathe evenly. Not one single part of me wants to give this asshole the satisfaction of a reaction out of me.
In the car, my dad is freaking out. He’s thrashing around and yelling, but Lyza’s arms are firmly rooted around him, keeping him in place as he screams incoherently. She looks at me through the window, seething with rage. If she weren’t containing my dad, she’d be out here kicking my assailant’s ass.
To my surprise, Zander takes action, throwing his door open and leaping up out of his seat.
My head is forced to the side as the gun digs harshly into my temple. Zander halts in his tracks, not moving at all, aside from holding his hands up.
“Get back in your car,” the asshole’s gravely voice commands slowly, “and drive away.”
Zander meets my gaze, not moving otherwise. Thank fuck, because I don’t want to be fucking shot!
I close my eyes, ramping down my own panic. One deep breath followed by another helps to steady myself. When I reopen my eyes, I nod to Zander. Hopefully, he’ll understand my silent communication. It’s okay. Do as he says. Get back in your car and leave. He nods back, but there seems to be agony in his eyes as he slowly lowers himself back into the driver’s seat.
His gorgeous silver car drives away, leaving me alone with this son of a bitch.
Finally, the gun moves away from my head. The relief is short lived though, because it presses into my back. He begins to push me along in a different direction than the warehouse we had come from.
As we walk, I notice the area is pretty abandoned. It doesn’t look like anyone has lived over here for some time. AGAS has probably been using all of these buildings for a while.
Reaching out with my senses, I feel small tendrils of water nearby. I keep a mental grip on it as I walk, in case I may need it. It’s doubtful there’s enough to do anything with.
“Where are you taking me?” I ask.
“You’ll find out soon enough,” The guy says, his voice gruff like he’s smoked a pack a day for the last decade. I roll my eyes. He’s done controlling this situation.
Acting on instinct, I pull the water up and guide it to where I feel the gun jammed into my back. It swirls around the gun and runs in a stream up his fingers to his wrist.
Douchebag’s body stiffens against my back for a moment and I use the opportunity to my advantage.
With a silent plea that I won’t get shot, I throw my elbow back, jabbing Douchebag’s stomach. Turning into him, I grab his wrist and pull the gun from his grasp, disarming him. I briefly think about using it on him, but guns just aren’t my style, so I flick the safety and turn to run away.
I don’t make it very far before being tackled from behind. Pain erupts from my chin as I hit the concrete hard, the gun skittering across the sidewalk.
“Alright, sweetheart, you wanna do this the hard way?” he says, shifting his weight off of me and grabbing my arms.
Taking my chance, I roll over and mentally grip the water again, hurling it at his face. It lands with a splash and he stumbles backward, spluttering and coughing.
Pushing myself up from the ground, I look for the gun, but it’s gone. I take off without it, running as fast as I can back toward Platt and Third. Footfalls pound the pavement behind me, but I push myself harder, not risking looking back.
A figure steps in front of me. I have no time to react, running smack into the AGAS guard.
“You shouldn’t have fought back,” he says, this voice holding a different tenor than the guy who held me at gunpoint. I mentally reach out for water, but a sharp pain lances through my head and everything goes black.
Traps
Harsh bright lights blare through my eyelids, pulling me back to consciousness. I blink a few times, forcing my eyes to adjust. As I try to sit up, my body stops abruptly, jerking me back onto the chair …
The chair?
Looking down, restraints are bound around my wrists, ankles, abdomen.
What in the actual hell?
My breathing hitches as I take in my surroundings. Machines and monitors line the pristine white walls. Wires and medical tubes dangle from the various machines and lead up to my body. There’s a beeping noise coming from somewhere behind me.
The room seems to shrink around me as I realize where I am. “No!” I scratch in a panic. My body feels as if my blood has all but drained from me, leaving me dizzy.
This has to be an AGAS room of some sort. Not like the ones I found Lyza and my dad in, but worse.
Just great. Just freaking great!
I pull on my restraints, seeing if there’s any room for me to wiggle out of them. They feel pretty tight, so it won’t be easy to get free—if I can at all. I’m not giving up though. I’ll just have to work harder at it.
Okay, Cleo, think. You’re trapped in a room, strapped to a chair, and hooked up to an IV and blood pressure cuff. What resources are available?
The only water sense is whatever is dripping from my IV tube.
I have no idea how long I was unconscious, and there aren’t any windows in here. So who knows what time it is? When we were leaving the warehouse, the sun was starting to set. For all I know, that was only an hour ago, or it could be the middle of the night. Judging by the stiffness in my muscles, my money’s on the latter.
Another sound breaks through the relentless beeping behind me. It sounds an awful lot like … is that a clock? Nah, not likely. I would’ve heard it before now. Plus, it seems to be getting louder.
It’s unmistakable now. The clicking of heels. And it’s coming from the other side of the door. A familiar beep trills out, the same one that signals the door unlocking. I tip my head up—the only part of my body I can lift off of the chair—in time to see the doorknob turning. A woman in a lab coat walks into the room. Her black hair is pulled back into a low bun, not a single strand out of place.
She doesn’t say anything to me, just checks each of the monitors and takes notes on her clipboard.
“Where am I?” I ask, but she doesn’t answer. She doesn’t even look at me. It doesn’t matter much, since I already have a pretty good idea about where I am.
“Who are you?” I try again. I look around her person for some sort of identity badge, but I don’t see one. There is a watch on her wrist though.
Holy shit, I was right. I’ve been knocked out for hours. It’s already one o’clock.
She stays silent, but this time she looks at me. Her eyes scan over my face, then across my body. It’s like she’s inspecting me, cataloguing me, with her emotionless eyes.